Touches You

People are voting emotionally.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Warner Archive offers a DVD of The Beast of the City (1932), in which Walter Huston plays a career cop who tries to clean up the city, despite determined opposition from politicians, the press, the public, his superiors - and even his brother (Wallace Ford) who has made an attachment with a gangster's moll (Jean Harlow). A dark and gritty film noir (which tends to go overboard in its concluding stages), the film was financed for Metro by William Randolph Hearst as an answer to Little Caesar. Both Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg were horrified by the finished film and attempted to withhold it from release. They kept it on the shelf for a year and then instructed salesmen to make little attempt to book it into theaters. The MGM brass hoped the movie would show a loss (which it did) and thus discourage moneybags Hearst from further forays into the grim and totally alien world of film noir.

As a previous reader mentioned, I, too, love Pre-Code gangster pictures, And with Beast Of The City I was not disappointed. It was a great story and with one of my favorites, Walter Huston, whom I consider the best American movie actor of all time (see "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" and "Dodsworth", among others). As mentioned, I am a big fan of good stories also and this had an excellent story to accompany the superior acting by the principals and supporting cast.I think it is thought-provoking to try to determine which one is the Beast - the old-fashioned, bare-knuckled cop played by Walter Huston or the crime boss played by Jean Hersholt(!). In any case, some stellar acting is turned in by Tully Marshall and Wallace Ford, and not to mention Jean Harlow with her patented missing-eyebrow look, which I always thought is a very peculiar look.I would like to make special mention of the eye-popping last scene, which has to be seen to be believed. I thought had seen everything, but I do love surprises. This is a good picture with a once-in-a-lifetime ending.

What could I tell more than the other users about that real gem from the thirties? They have already told everything. I just specify that this features reminds me Abel Ferrarra's masterpiece: " King of New York". The tale of a bunch of hard boiled cops, friends as well in the force as outside their job, a real family, who decide to wipe a gang of unassailable hoods out, by their own way. The hard way. Apply their own justice. Except that in the Ferrarra's film, the gangsters are shown with a little sympathy; Christopher Walken is a "good" gangster who want to sell drug in order to build a hospital for the homeless, something like that...In Ferrarra's film, there is no real bad guy or good guy. The audience feels sympathy for both sides: cops and hoods.In both films you find a story of a ruthless face to face between two groups. Tll their total extermination. Fierce stories but exciting. I love that...

Beast of the City, The (1932) *** (out of 4) MGM gangster film shown from the point of view of the police. Capt. Fitzpatrick (Walter Huston) is out to bring down gangster Sam Belmonte (Jean Hersholt) but is sold out by his brother (Wallace Ford) who has fallen for the gangster's girl (Jean Harlow). This film is certainly a lot different than the Warner gangster pictures as it doesn't glamorize the gangsters but instead puts the spotlight on the public for allowing gangs to rule the streets. Huston is his usual fiery self and both Ford and Harlow shine in their supporting roles. The subplot between Ford and Harlow is a bit weak but it leads to a highly powerful ending, which is among one of the best scenes from all the gangster films from this period.